February 7, 2015 / Randy Coppinger

Profile: Doppler Studios, Atlanta

Entry to Doppler Studios in Atlanta, Georgia

Whenever I’ve needed to record out of town, information about studios in that area has been very much appreciated. If you ever need to record in Atlanta, here’s some info about Doppler Studios. This seven room facility is located about 15 miles north of the airport in Piedmont Heights. The Lindbergh Center Station is only 1.1 miles from the studio if you want to take the MARTA subway from the airport.

I’ve worked over the phone with Shawn Coleman for at least a decade. He’s our go to guy for voice recording. He typically works in Studio G, a well equipped room for voice actors, music production, and film/TV audio post.

We finally had the opportunity to show up in person for a session and were treated to working in Studio A, with a larger control room and larger studio proper including a baby grand piano. Shawn knows we like the sound of their Neumann u87. He also hung a Neumann TLM 103 running at a lower volume as a safety microphone in case the actor suddenly shouted (recorded on a separate track). The 40 input SSL 4000E was overkill for the two microphones we used, but it sure was a pleasure to see and hear. Always the professional, Shawn kept the session running smoothly and everything sounded great. What I didn’t know until this visit: Chief engineer Joe Neil makes his own custom microphone preamps, which we used for our recording session. They sounded very nice feeding into the Manley compressor. We recorded at 32bit, 96k Hz because it sounds better if we need any iZotope Declick to help clean up mouth noise.

After our session Shawn showed me their big music tracking room: Studio E. With a 56 input SSL, 3 large isolation booths and a 30′ x 40′ studio proper this would be ideal for recording large groups of musicians at the same time.

Below we see Shawn in the big room with two of the three iso booths behind him.

So now you know a little more about this fine studio. I hope you find it helpful if you need to record in Atlanta. Now, here are some more pretty pictures.